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This is my journey to a healthier me. I will be trying new recipes, completing a variety of workouts, and tracking my progress through this blog. Included will be printables of all recipes used, details on what workouts I do, and worksheets that you can download to track your own progress, if desired. So join me on this journey, and lets get accountable together!

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musings and personal

Today was an off day for me. Not bad, just off. I got my Chemistry grade back, which wasn’t good and I woke up extremely tired so it was difficult to participate in real life.

Despite that, I did my best to stay on track. Here is what my Wednesday looked like:

WEDNESDAY MEALS:

Breakfast:

Today was my second attempt at making a breakfast smoothie. It was better than yesterday, but still not something I want to drink on a regular basis. Eventually I hope to have this shake thing figured out.

Ingredients:

Banana

1 cup blackberries/blueberries

3 Tbsp. chia seeds

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1 Tbsp. pure raw honey

I made 1 slice of cinnamon toast as well, just so I could actually enjoy some part of my breakfast.

Lunch:

I did a horrible job planning my meals for the week (I didn’t do it at all) so my options were pretty limited for lunch this afternoon. I was able to go home in between class and work so I just went with something simple: Lean Cuisine.

I want to try and use freezer meals as little as possible, but there are just some days where its the only option you have.

Dinner:

I really messed up with my dinner choice. I was so tired after a long busy day, and didn’t have much at the house to prepare a meal. So I gave in to the temptation and ordered Wing Stop.

I justify this choice with the fact that in 2 months I will be moving to a place where Wing Stop doesn’t exist, so I need to relish in the glory that is their boneless chicken wings while I can.

I only felt a little guilty about it. And then the moment was over.

WEDNESDAY WORKOUT:

I was able to get my resistance training in, but failed to do cardio. I was just so tired, I couldn’t talk myself into going running after dinner 😦

I also got hit on at the gym today. I really need to get my ring back from being re-sized at the jewelers. I don’t know how believable “I’m engaged” is when you don’t have a ring to shove in their face as evidence.

Hey guys! Here is the Tuesday update for Week 5. I still haven’t had time to sit down and plan out my meals for the rest of the week, so I’ve had to basically just throw ingredients together from whatever is here at my house.

I’m keeping up with my workouts though, which is great!

Here is what my Tuesday looked like:

TUESDAY MEALS:

Breakfast:

I’ve been reading a lot about the benefits of having breakfast smoothies in the morning packed with fruits and veggies. I’ve tried making them before in the past, but I have yet to make one that I actually enjoy drinking. The smoothie I made this morning was no different.

I hated everything about it, from the texture to the taste. Despite it being horrible, I drank the entire thing anyways.

Included in today’s smoothie:

– 1 cup coconut milk, unsweetened

– 1 cup mixture of blueberries and blackberries

– 1/2 frozen banana

– 1 handful baby spinach

– 2 Tbsp. chia seeds

This probably would have been more tolerable if I hadn’t used banana. I really really hate bananas, but I’m trying to eat them more because they really are just so good for you.

I clearly need help in the smoothie department, so pleas PLEASE send me healthy smoothie recipes you use that are actually enjoyable to consume.

Lunch:

This morning my schedule was a bit different then normal because I changed my hours around at work. I had extra time this morning that I wasn’t used to having, so it threw my entire routine off track. One consequence of this change is that I was so scatter brained, that I completely forgot my lunch on the kitchen counter before heading off to work.

I was super upset about this because that meant an entire 6 hours would go by before I could eat, and that disgusting breakfast smoothie did NOT fill me up.

Fortunately, my co-workers are amazing. Before leaving to head to class, someone brought me their left-over veggie wrap from their lunch. I’m not sure where she got it from, but it was AMAZING. From what I could tell, the wrap had tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, and spinach with some sort of chipotle ranch dressing. I’m not normally a fan of tomatoes, but I couldn’t taste them mixed with all these other flavors. Or I was just really freaking hungry.

Either way, I had food. And healthy food at that. So I was happy. I ate it in the car whilst driving to the other side of campus for class.

Dinner:

Dinners are always difficult for me, because I never know how much time I will have. Plus, I haven’t gone grocery shopping since I haven’t had a chance to sit down and plan my meals. So this evening, I just came home and threw together whatever I had lying around the house.

First, I started boiling some water to cook 1/2 cup of whole-wheat pasta.

While that was going, I put a nice spoon-full of organic virgin coconut oil in a pan to heat. I’ve never cooked with coconut oil before, so I was jumping into unknown territory with this one.

Once the coconut oil was heated I threw in a good handful of shrimp, bell pepper (red, green, and yellow), and onions to saute.

Once the liquid was completely absorbed, I added some green chile for a little extra spice and flavor.

By this point, the noodles were done so I drained them and added a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. I added the shrimp-veggie mixture and topped with some Parmesan cheese.

The flavor was relatively mild, but pretty darn good considering I had no idea what I was doing.

TUESDAY WORKOUT:

Cardio Crusher Tuesday is all about getting moving to rev up that metabolism! Today I got two activities in.

First, I got in a nice morning jog. I had just woken up then went out the door, so my body wasn’t warmed up yet and as a result my timing and distance suffered a bit. Here are my stats:

– 3,733 Steps

– 2.03 Miles

– 176 Calories

– Close to 25 minutes

After my run. Don’t mind the red face and no-makeup.

After my run, I got ready for the rest of my day and went to work and then class. I got out of lab around 5 then went straight up to A Mountain to meet a few members from my hiking group. With Daylight Savings back in effect, we have more sunlight in the evening. More sunlight means more opportunity to get some hikes in! It is likely every Tuesday, I will be doing these evening hikes with them. Here are my stats:

– 6,399 Steps

– 2.93 Miles

– 204 Calories

Here is a view of the cityscape from the top:

And a view of the Organs 🙂

These statistics only include the output from these two events. I didn’t wear my pedometer all day, so I’m not sure what my complete daily totals are. Still though, this is good progress in comparison to previous weeks.

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Here we are at the start of Week 5! It’s crazy how the time flies! I also just realized that completely forgot to do my week 4 check-in with body measurements. I was going to do that this morning, but my scale (of course) is low on batteries and wouldn’t let me check my weight. I’ll have to pick up some up from the store before I can do a full update.

But anyways, it’s Monday and I have a surprising amount of energy considering Daylight’s Savings was just yesterday and I was up pretty late studying for two exams.

I did pretty good at sticking with healthy meal choices and completing my workouts too! Here is what my Monday looked like!

MONDAY MEALS:

Breakfast:

I really enjoyed the chia pudding I made last week, so I decided to make another batch.

I don’t think the kiwi was ripe this time, it tasted super strange and took a real effort to eat. But I did it, breakfast is the most important meal of the day after all!

Lunch:

I work up early this morning, mostly because I was stressing about my Chemistry and Genetics exams. With that extra time, I decided to make myself an egg sandwich to take with me for lunch.

For the spread I used avocado, then added my egg with pepper jack cheese and a few slices of green bell pepper. It was really tasty, and kept me full all afternoon.

I had also grabbed a tangerine to have as a snack, but it wasn’t very good so I threw it out.

Dinner:

With all my studying yesterday, I didn’t have time to sit down and plan out my weekly meals. As a result, I had no idea what I was going to do for dinner. One of my coworkers informed me of these portobello mushrooms topped with spinach and mozzarella cheese at Albertson’s and that they were really tasty, so I thought I’d give them a try.

I wanted to include some protein, and thought shrimp stir fry over brown and wild rice would be a good addition to complete this meal.

I’m still getting used to the texture of mushrooms. The taste was great, but I still have to really focus on not spitting them out just because they feel so weird. It’s a work in progress.

The mushroom comes in a pack of two and includes baking instructions. Just drizzle a pan with olive oil and bake for specified amount of time. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

For the stir-fry, I used a small amount of light-sodium soy sauce with red, green, and yellow bell pepper plus some onion and shrimp! I was satisfied with this meal.

Here is the mushroom before baking:

While that was cooking, I got started on my stir-fry:

And the finished product!

MONDAY WORKOUT:

Today is the first day that I completed my resistance training AND cardio! Woo hoo! I can already feel the difference from adding more cardio into my activities. Bikini body, here I come!

Resistance Training:

Mat Exercises:

Cardio:

I didn’t run as far tonight, but a little bit is better than none at all!

Steps — 3,458

Miles — 1.96

Calories — 192

After my run. Sweaty and gross, but I can definitely feel a difference!

So this was my Monday! Not a bad start to the week. If you are reading this blog, I encourage you to share any healthy meal recipes or ideas you have or what workout routine you follow! I want this to be an interactive page where we can learn and grow together!

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Normally today is my Rest Day but my meetup group had a hike scheduled that I really wanted to go on, so I did that instead! I am loving this warm weather! Goodbye winter, hello summer! Because let’s face it: New Mexico doesn’t do fall or spring…

It was a busy busy day, but I got a lot done and feel very accomplished. Here is what my Sunday consisted of:

SUNDAY MEALS:

Breakfast:

I didn’t have to meet up with my fellow hikers until 9 AM, so I got to sleep in this morning which was nice. And thank goodness for smartphones, because I COMPLETELY forgot about the time change.

Anyways, after getting up and getting prepped for my adventure in the outdoors, I had a breakfast muffin on my way out the door. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.

Lunch:

After spending several hours wondering in the desert, I came home starving. With two exams tomorrow, I really needed something quick so I could head to the library and study.

Fortunately, there were still plenty of leftovers from last night’s meal, so I just heated that up and watched a quick episode of The New Girl on Netflix before heading off to cram my brain full of Chemistry and Genetics nonsense. I forgot, yet again, to take a picture. Sorry

Dinner:

After 8 hours of studying, my brain could not even fathom preparing an extravagant dinner. I am also highly against wasting yummy food, so I ate the last of Saturday night’s dinner. Such a good meal!

Potatoes often get a bad reputation as being fatty, but it really just depends on how they’re prepared and how large your consumption is. Truthfully, they are very nutritious if done the right way…that means stop adding all that butter and don’t peel the skins!

I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, but I’m going to try and start incorporating them more into my meals by switching on and off between red and sweet to try and get as much nutrient diversity as I can. In keeping with the “all things in moderation” principle, I think I will try to have 1 meal a week using potatoes.

If you’re interested in learning more about their health benefits, or finding some yummy recipes, check out this website:

Normally, I have Sunday designated as my Rest Day. One day of being a lard ass. Woohoo!

This week, however, there was a hike scheduled in one of the meetup groups I’m a member of that I really wanted to go on. So I did!

Located about 15-20 minutes outside of Las Cruces is this area many refer to as the “Dona Ana Arches.” I have never heard of them before this weekend, which is surprising. It wasn’t a long hike, but pretty high intensity with the elevation variances involved.

It was a beautiful sunny day, I’m so glad I decided to go!

Here are my stats and some pictures from my afternoon:

Steps — 9,936

Distance — 4.27 miles

Calories — 312

Some of the rock formations at the start of our hike…see the “Elephant Arch” up towards the top on the right?

Climbing up through the first arch.

A beautiful view of the Las Cruces area once we made it to the top.

One of my best friends, Renee, and I up at the top.

The bat caves at “The Nose.” No bats flying around, as they’re still down in Mexico. There were lots of little cave swallows, which were not happy about us being there.

Exploring the entrance into the bat caves.

So this was my Sunday. Like I said, very busy but very productive. And I just cannot emphasize enough how happy I am that the weather is finally warming up!

If you’re in the Las Cruces area, send me a message or comment if you want to go hiking. I try to go every weekend, and the more the merrier!

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After such a terrible week, it was nice to have a day just to myself where I didn’t have to worry about homework or classes. It was still a very busy day, but pleasant. No emotional breakdowns this time, scouts honor.

Here is what my day looked like:

SATURDAY MEALS:

Breakfast:

I set my alarm for 11:30 hoping to try and sleep in. My body doesn’t know how to do that anymore, so around 8 a.m. I was wide awake. I stayed snuggled in my covers for a little while before getting up to make breakfast.

Since I didn’t have anything I needed to rush off and do, I decided to make myself a nice weekend breakfast of eggs, turkey maple sausage, and toast!

My eggs cooked perfectly, but I have crappy spatulas so I broke two of the three yolks during my transfer from the hot plate to my actual plate. I was determined to have one perfect egg.

I also found these adorable juice boxes at the store!! Look how tiny and cute they are!

Lunch:

After breakfast, I got busy on cleaning my apartment. I try and do it once a week to keep things tidy. If my apartment isn’t clean, I get really bad anxiety and can’t focus. After watching all 10 seasons of Friends, I find it amusing how similar I am to the Monica character in that show She’s always cleaning. And my brother is also a total nerd (Craig = Ross)! The similarities are just uncanny!

Anyways, getting off track….

After cleaning, I worked up a pretty good appetite. I wanted something simple, so went with this yummy Lean Cuisine meal:

Dinner:

For dinner I decided to try and experiment. I normally make turkey burritos using McCormick burrito seasoning. Tonight I wanted to switch things up a bit, so instead of my normal burritos I thought I’d try and do a “burrito bake”.

First, I cut three red potatoes into cubes, coated them in extra virgin olive oil, and seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, and red chile flakes.

I also seeded and sliced two jalepenos and add to this mixture. To soften, I covered the potatoes with foil and baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, stirred the mixture, then baked for an additional 15 minutes.

While the potatoes were baking, I browned up my turkey meat and steamed some asparagus. Once the turkey meat was cooked thoroughly, I added the McCormick flavoring and let simmer until all the liquid had absorbed.

Once the potatoes were soft I covered them with the turkey meat and added some cheese, baking just long enough for the cheese to melt.

This meal was so tasty, and super filling. I have plenty of leftovers for lunch and probably dinner tomorrow which is great!

Sweat it Out Saturday is all about getting moving in the great outdoors!

I normally accomplish this by going out on a hike. I’m part of a meetup group here in Las Cruces called the Jornada Hiking Club, and now that the weather is warmer their activity is starting to pick up some. Tomorrow (Sunday) they have a really nice hike scheduled, so instead of going out today I’m gonna join them for that. So check back tomorrow to see how my hike goes!

As for today, I still got a good workout in. First by cleaning, then by going for a jog! My knee was feeling a lot better today, but I still wanted to take it easy. Here are my stats:

I didn’t time myself, which I really need to start doing. But I think I left the house around 5:19 and it was 5:45 when I got back. Not bad, especially if you knew how terrible my outdoor runs were just a few months ago.

Here’s me returning from my jog! The weather was beautiful!

Don’t forget to stretch!!

I’m really proud of my improvement with my cardio. I used to hate running, but I am finding that I actually really enjoy it when I push myself to give it my all. I am hopeful for the future and that with time and hard work, I will be able to look at my body and love what I see.

My negative Nancy attitude has unfortunately carried over from yesterday into today. Not without cause, these past few days have been extremely stressful and chaotic. I could really go for a vacation. Or a hug.

FRIDAY MEALS:

Breakfast.

I really need to go grocery shopping. Like, really bad. I’m running low on everything. I had a simple yogurt for breakfast this morning, which I ate while doing my hair and make-up before lab.

No pic, I forgot.

Lunch:

When I said I really needed to go grocery shopping, I wasn’t kidding. The only “lunch-y” food items I have in my house right now are ramen noodles, or ingredients to make (can you guess) a grilled cheese.

So I made that and paired it with an apple.

Dinner:

I had chicken….of the Wing Stop variety. I only feel a little bit guilty.

FRIDAY WORKOUT:

Today’s workout was frustrating because I REALLY wanted to do my normal resistance routine and some cardio. My knee is still swollen and kind of bothering me though, so I thought it would be a bad idea to put too much strain on it.

So instead, I did some ab workouts on the mat then attempted some light cardio on the treadmill. After 8 minutes of walking I made it to half a mile, but my knee started hurting so I stopped. I’m going to be icing it all night and hope it gets better soon.

Stupid knee.

I meant to take a picture after walking the treadmill, but when I pushed “Stop” the stupid thing erased all my stats!

But here are the exercises I did on the mat:

Russian Twist — 30x — 3x

Toe Touches — 30x — 3x

Leg Pull Ups — 10x — 2x

Bicycle Crunches — 30x — 3x

Push Ups — 15x — 3x

Donkey Kicks — 20x — 3x

Fire Hydrant — 10x — 3x

I want to apologize for how negative my posts have been as of late. My course load is stressing me out so badly right now, that it’s hard to focus on eating right and sticking to a regular workout routine. I even had a melt down today when working with my chemistry instructor to prepare for our next exam (super embarrassing).

I keep telling myself that all this hard work and frustration will be worth it. So for now, I’m trying to take it one day at a time.

We all have those days where we just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Well today, I did just that (literally….I sleep on the right side, but woke up on the left).

I was a grump all day long, which was only exacerbated by my random and unorganized meals. I need food at regular intervals throughout my day to remain calm and collected. I didn’t lash out at anyone, but man did I want to. Me being hangry + being surrounded by idiots = not a good day.

Here is a look into the unpleasantry that was my Thursday.

THURSDAY MEALS:

Breakfast:

My apartment was freezing this morning, which for-warned me that it was freezing outside. I didn’t want to get up and be subjected to that torture, so I stayed in bed for as long as possible until I had no choice but to get up.

Because of this hesitance, I had very little time to get ready. I jumped in the shower to wash my hair (I have to do this daily, otherwise my hair is super gross) then put on powder and mascara. Going for the minimalist look today.

Once my “make-up” and hair were done, I had 2 minutes to find something to eat before getting dressed and leaving for my plants lab. I still had chia pudding left over and half an apple cut up, so I just dipped my apple slices into the pudding. Not exactly a filling breakfast, but it was better than nothing.

Lunch:

With how chaotic and unorganized my “breakfast” was, I’m sure you can imagine how planned out my lunch was.

If you said “not at all” you would be 100% correct. In my exhaustion the night before, I completely spaced on prepping up my lunch for today. That coupled with my morning cold aversion left me with nothing to bring with me to eat.

That left me with campus choices…which aren’t exactly screaming “healthy and appetizing” all within the same sentence. I am at work during the lunch hour, so I just walked to the nearest facility with food and grabbed a bean and cheese burrito from the Mexican bar. They have this amazing green chile cheese sauce that I normally get inside my burrito, but its so messy. Since I’m at work and don’t think they’d take to kindly to me getting cheese all over the place, I had them make me a smothered green chile and cheese burrito instead. I then topped this delicious creation with salsa and pic de gallo.

Definitely not healthy, so I’m contemplating using this as my cheat meal for the week.

Dinner:

After leaving GIS class around 6 o’clock, I had plans to meet with my chemistry lab partners to study for our upcoming exam. They, however, decided to meet while I was in class so I was left to work on problems alone.

After a terrible day, and hardly any food in my house to make a decent meal, I had my third grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. It’s just been one of those days, and I’m too tired to care.

THURSDAY WORKOUTS:

I didn’t think I’d be getting my workout in today with all the studying I have to do. After the day I’ve had though, I needed an outlet for my frustrations so I decided to go jogging.

My run was amazing, the best jog I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it’s because I am so mad and frustrated, or because I found a really good playlist to jog to but I’m so proud of myself and my performance.

Normally, when I go on my runs I alternate between jogging and walking. I’m terrible at cardio, and get winded really easy. Tonight though, that wasn’t the case. I did a warm-up walk for about 2 minutes, then started jogging and just didn’t stop. My shoe came untied a couple times, so I had to stop to re-tie it…but other then that, I jogged the ENTIRE TIME! THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!

3 miles in less than 40 minutes. Not great time, but better than it would have been had I alternated walking and jogging like normal. I wasn’t in pain, my lungs weren’t begging me to stop. It was amazing.

Me after my run, getting ready to do some stretches!

I did notice when I got home that my right knee was super swollen. It doesn’t hurt, thankfully. I sat down to do some stretches, but after seeing just how big it was I propped it up and have been alternating between hot and cold. I hope tomorrow it’s back to normal so I can do my resistance training routine. If it’s still swollen I’m gonna take it easy at the gym.

Can you tell the difference?

Other than my awesome run, this Thursday can go take its suck it and GO SUCK IT.